Friday, September 6, 2013

Les Stroud started out with his "Survivor Man" series some years back, about the time Bear "Holiday Inn" Grylls began his shows.

Stroud went out into extreme environments for a week at a time, alone. He filmed his own productions. After three years, he got burnt out. His long time wife left him and took his kids, and he decided to take things easy for awhile. He's a folk musician and shows up at different venues playing his brand of Canadian folk music with his fellow band members. After awhile he had to go back to work because music might have been fun but it wasn't very remunerative. He did a short lived show for the Discovery Channel where he went out and lived with small tribes of indigenous people. To be honest, I had a hard time staying interested, since it was really an anthropology show and not very survival oriented. The series was cancelled after one season. Subsequent to that, Stroud did two specials. Each was a two hour version of the old Survivorman show, one set in the region of Baja Mexico and one in Norway.

This new season starting tonight promises to be good. Stroud has always been a nice guy, honest and unpretentious. I hope this takes off for him.

19 comments:

Sounds like a very adventurous show! We don't have cable. With working full-time, kids and going to the Y, we just don't have the time. Sometimes I watch show online though. I'll have to see if this on is on their website.

It's a very good series. I have satellite up here, I like the weather channel, Fox News, Discovery, History 1 and 2, and Nat Geo. With my kids grown and gone, and me being retired, it's nice to watch a good show now and then.

The thing that makes me mad is when they put something on a channel that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic. I can't figure out what Pawn Stars, American Pickers, et al have to do with anything, to be honest. I think they are just fillers.

Thank you for reminding me - let me see if I can wrest the control from my daughter (Let her see what she wants - she's just a baby !) :^)

Looks like a good show - I'm hoping less drama and strictly more 'teaching' moments. That was what I missed from Mikel Hawke's MAN WOMAN WILD show, the description of techniques while showing the work.

Hawke's had a good show. It had a big audience, and the only thing I can think of is that his wife had enough of it. She had a rough time but she seemed to give it her best shot.

Stroud never went in for high drama, he's pretty straight forward. I don't know what this new show will be like but if it's like the old Survivor Man it will be good.

You need multiple receivers. My set up was installed back when I had kids, so I have a receiver in the living room, one in the family room, and one out in the apartment. Unfortunately, most of the time I am the only one here who watches tv since the ferrets think it is too low brow.

There's a great video he made years before he was "Survivor man". He and his wife lived on some lake in the woods in Canada, with only stone tools, for a year. No metal at all. He couldn't fish or hunt worth a damn then either.

Harry - when i was running the CPN, i was contacted by another super canadian survivalist, Allen "Bow" Beauchamp who was actually the guy who taught Les all the fire tricks! Bow Beauchamp acted as a consultant on all of the Survivor Man series and he also supported Les writing his book "Survive". Bow did a few posts for the CPN, the most notable being "Fire from Ice" - what a wicked awesome post! for some reason unknown to me, after i left the CPN, they took down the posts for each of the provinces. Bow wrote for the province of Nunavut. i still have access to those posts and if you are interested in reading Bow's "Fire from Ice" post, let me know. i will send it through email!

Kymber, I don't think I have ever heard of him, but he sounds like an interesting person. Actually, I never heard of the Canadian Preppers Network but I'm going to take a look at it ASAP. That sounds like a good source of information. I'd like to read the "Fire from Ice" post if it isn't too much trouble.

We are ready to go with Les Stroud's next series! Just a few more hours....Didn't like Bear Grylls' just-finished series of the two person teams. Yawn... Also hope he has new material as we have watched everything he has produced. Go, Les! all the best....

Bear Grylls lost my respect when he faked some of the scenes in his first year of his series. Not least because when someone told me he was faking them, I vehemently defended him. But when I wrote to Discovery Channel it turned out the detractor was right and I had to apologize to the guy. It's the old "fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me." thing.

I watched the show tonight and I thought it was pretty good. True, a lot of it was clips from his old series but it was well put together and I paid close attention. I don't think I'll ever get caught out in the woods away from my base, but I guess it doesn't hurt to know how to start a fire if your matches get wet. :-)

But how to do it?

“The worst evil which befalls our race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely.”

― Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

Sooth

"I certainly do not wish to live in a society dominated by blacks, Mexicans, and Orientals. Look at Africa, Mexico, and Asia."

Edward Abbey

Practical News

Edward Abbey

"It might be wise for us, as American citizens, to consider calling a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-genetically, impoverished people...Why not [support immigration]? Because we prefer democratic government, for one thing; because we still hope for an open, spacious, uncrowded, and beautiful--yes beautiful!--society, for another. The alternative, in the squalor, cruelty and corruption of Latin America, is plain for all to see."

Bugging Out. It's fraught with peril.

T-28 : They don't make 'em like that anymore!

Crank that big radial up.

George Orwell

He knew whereof he spoke.

Self Defense

"There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts, a law which comes to us not by training, or custom, or reading. A law which has come to us not by theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right."

Marcus Tullius Cicero 106- 43 B.C.

Ferret and friend.

Ferratus: Little Thief

but good friends

Orwell

Steven Seagal

"There was a time when I thought I was doing a good thing with good guys for a good cause. Looking back, I think I really wanted to be a warrior."

The Magic Ferret

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot...”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

John S. Mill

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.

Oswald Spengler

"This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves...."

Honor

" Everything that is called duty, the prerequisite for all genuine law and the substance of every noble custom, can be traced back to honor. If one has to think about it, one is already without honor."

Oswald Spengler "Thoughts"

Smokey

Elaine Boosler

"When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking."

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War

At the beginning of an undertaking the enthusiasm is always greatest. And at that time, both in the Peloponnesus and in Athens there were great numbers of young men who had never been in a war, and were consequently far from unwilling to join in this one.

Germaine Greer

"Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a great deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe."

Jeff Cooper

"The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory."

When seconds count, the police are minutes away.

Or in my case, maybe an hour or so.

Robert A. Heinlein

"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them."

Careful what you say.

Security

He is best secure from dangers who is on his guard even when he seems safe.(Caret periculo, qui etiam tutus caveat)

Publius Syrus, 50 B.C.

Long Ago and Far Away

A good novel

An interesting book about something no one remembers anymore.

Jared Diamond

If you use a bolt action military rifle, you need stripper clips.

You can still get them if you look.

A useful book

I saw her off the coast of Lebanon.

Nobody will ever see a BB in action again.

Correct on both counts."

"You have to defend your honor. And your family."

Suzanne Vega

T-28 Trojan

My Hobby

A good general guide.

Huey

You can't tell the players without a program.

So many guns, so little time.

The Road

The book is great, and so is the movie.

A little of both.

“Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains.”

Jeffery Rasley

Mountains

“Mountains seem to answer an increasing imaginative need in the West. More and more people are discovering a desire for them, and a powerful solace in them. At bottom, mountains, like all wildernesses, challenge our complacent conviction - so easy to lapse into - that the world has been made for humans by humans. Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence."